My Last Continent: A Novel(22)

“Harry’s got bronchitis,” he goes on, “and he’s going home. I’m here, I’m vetted—so they offered me his job.” A pause. “It’s a step up from dishwashing, at least.”

I’m silent, still staring downward.

“I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it back here otherwise, you know?” I hear a pleading note in his voice. “Come on, Deb, say something.”

I look up at him finally. “What’s there to say?”

“Tell me you understand.”

“I don’t.”

“I need this, Deb. I’ve tried to start over—with Britt, with my job—nothing worked. But here”—he raises his hands as if to take in not just the building but the whole continent—“I feel as though it’s possible here.”

He steps forward, gathers my hands. “You’ll be back before you know it. Next season. Or even sooner—for Winfly, maybe,” he says, referring to the six-week fly-in period between winter and the main season. “Or I’ll see you in Oregon. Like we planned.”

When I don’t answer, he squeezes my hands. “I’m doing this for my future here. For ours.”

When I look at him, I know that he’s fallen head over heels—not for me but for this continent. I can’t blame him. I myself had overwintered after my first visit to McMurdo. Much like Keller, after I’d gotten a taste of Antarctica, I didn’t want to leave. Because there’d been no research for me over the winter—the wildlife disappears when the sea ice encompasses the island—I’d taken a job as a firehouse dispatcher. I’d have done anything to stay.

And I want to tell him so many things. That it’s exhilarating—the way the sun dips below the horizon for longer and longer each day, a glowing orange yolk that leaves behind a reddish black sky. That it’s lonely—that he will hear the waning sound of the season’s last plane echoing in the sky for a long, long time. That it’s dangerous—that the storms here are unlike anything he’s ever seen, with winds at a hundred knots, temperatures at eighty degrees below zero, snow blasting through the air like violent ghosts and seeping into buildings through the smallest cracks imaginable. That in the six months of total isolation, with no supply deliveries, no company other than two hundred other wintering souls, he will long for things like city streets, oranges, the leaves of trees.

Yet he’s made up his mind. While overwintering isn’t for the faint of heart, I know Keller believes it will be easier for him to be here than at home. And he’s probably right.

I drop his hands and pick up my duffel. I can’t speak, so I nudge past him toward the door.

“That’s it?” He’s speaking to my back as I approach the exit, the sunlight from the open door blindingly bright.

I stop and turn around. “Come with me, Keller. If you stay here . . .”

He comes close, puts a cool hand on my cheek. “It’ll be fine,” he says. “It’s just a few months.”

“Six months,” I remind him.

“That’s nothing, in Antarctic time,” he insists.

It’s forever, but I don’t tell him that. I’m still holding my duffel, which is heavy, and I feel the painful stretching of muscles in my arm as I stand there, waiting for Keller to change his mind, knowing he won’t. When he reaches for my bag, I let him take it. We don’t talk as I get weighed with my bags, have my passport checked. We share a brief wisp of a kiss, nothing more. Keller waits on the ice as I board the bus, as it rumbles toward the airfield on its massive tires.

As I watch Keller through the bus’s small windows, I think of the look on his face when he’d watched the Adélies that day on the ice, the first time he kissed me. I remember telling him that the Adélies will sometimes mate for life, but they are loyal first and foremost to their nesting sites—and now it seems that Keller and I are no different, loyal first and always to the continent.

At McMurdo in the depth of winter, people come together for many reasons—loneliness and boredom even more than attraction and compatibility—and I wonder if Keller will emerge from the dark with another woman in his life, just as at the end of each winter, an Adélie will return to its nest, but if its partner doesn’t show, it will choose a new one and move on.





FIVE DAYS BEFORE SHIPWRECK


Aitcho Islands, South Shetland Islands

(62°24'S, 59°47'W)





It’s early in the morning when I go up to the ship’s “business center,” a tiny space with a short row of computer terminals and a satellite phone. On the Cormorant, the emphasis is on seeing the sights, not on staying connected, but there’s just enough here for the die-hard workaholics to plug in if they need to. From what I’ve heard about the Australis, all the passengers’ and crew’s quarters have in-room phones, so it should be easy enough to reach Keller.

After an operator connects me, I listen to the ringing of the phone—a strange sound to hear as I look out at nothing but sea and ice. I’ve never had to reach anyone from the Southern Hemisphere before—everyone back home knows when I’m away and when to expect me back—and this need to connect fills me with an unfamiliar anxiety, as though I’ve learned a new language and am fumbling to find the right words. As the ringing continues, I wonder: Do these in-room phones have voice mail? And if so, what will I say?